British Council for promoting education, culture in Bihar

Patna, Aug 8: The British Council India is interested in long-term collaboration with the Bihar government for promotion of education and culture.

"I will discuss with the Education Minister Ashok Kumar Chaudhary later in the day about the ways to take forward the collaboration between the British Council of India and the Bihar government for promotion of education and culture in the state," British Council India Director Alan Gemmell said.

The British Council, in association with the UK Department of International Development (DFID) and the Education Department of Bihar has been successfully running the Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools (BLISS) since January 2012, Gemmell said.

Being jointly funded by the DFID and the British council, the BLISS programme will come to an end in March, 2017.

Under the programme more than 200 Teachers have been selected for a foundation programme focusing on their own language skills, interactive and communicative teaching methodologies to train them to impart a newly designated teacher training programme, called English for All in Bihar, to 3200 secondary school English Teachers across the state, the British Council Director said.

In addition, the British Council India Director launched the '2017 UK-India Year of Culture' campaign in the state capital in order to promote cultural exchange and to create educational opportunities for stronger ties between the two countries.

As part of the cultural programmes in Bihar, a film titled 'All Night Long' directed by Basil Dearden, will be shown at IIT Patna on September 15.

The British Council will also present five bands from the UK to perform at various venues across the country later this year, Gemmell said.